Modern freight transportation often involves the shipping of cargo across the world by land, sea and air. Typically, freight is packaged in an intermodal container and sealed to indicate and/or prevent unwanted entry thereto. From the moment of departure of the freight until it reaches its final destination, the container may be loaded and unloaded to and from a number of cargo carriers (e.g. trucks, rail cars, ships, planes, etc.) depending on the distance and route to be traveled. Over the course of its transportation, the container may be left unattended for extended periods of time, at which time a thief may attempt to break into the container and pilfer some or all of its contents. Nowadays, an additional concern is that a terrorist may attempt to insert weapons or explosives into the container.
A close-up picture of a door of a freight container is shown in FIG. 1. Traditionally, freight containers are sealed by securing at least one handle (1) to the container door (9) with a seal (2), which prevents the handle (1) from being allowed to rotate, thereby preventing the door from being opened. However, the pin (3) that pivotally connects one end of the handle (1) to the locking rod (4) which is joined to the container door (9) may be easily removed, for example, by a cold chisel and hammer. As shown in FIG. 2, with the pin (3) removed, the locking rod (4) may be rotated and the container door opened without ever removing the seal (2) from the handle (1). A substitute pin can be easily placed in the pin hole after closing the container door. Thus, the contents of the container may be removed and/or a weapon or explosive may be inserted without any evidence of tampering. When the security breach is finally detected, it may be difficult to determine where and when it took place along the transportation route.
One way of overcoming the deficiencies of the sealing mechanism described above is to provide a jacket and sleeve member for enclosing the hinging pin. Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,904. However, removing this device is not a difficult task, and replacing it may not be necessary, since an inspector or person who handles the container will note that the pin is still in place (even though it is actually a substitute for the original pin) and may not even know that the jacket and sleeve device was originally there as well. Alternatively, a thief may attempt to replace the jacket and sleeve with a suitable substitute.
An additional concern, when providing sealing containers, is to conform to the relatively new container sealing requirements dictated by the U.S. Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and the ISO/PAS 17712 High Security standard. According to the C-TPAT requirements, a bolt seal conforming to the “High Security” grade as per ISO/PAS 17712 must be utilized for container sealing. Moreover, when a cable seal is utilized, the ISO/PAS 17712 High Security grade shear strength requirement effectively translates to a 4 mm thickness. These requirements can add cost to the manufacture and, therefore, sale price of seals and in particular door to door cable seals, which may be prohibitive to some manufacturers and consumers.
It is interesting to note that there are a number of deficiencies involved with bolt seals. In particular, although bolt seals possess high tensile strength, in many, if not most models, removal of the insertion bolt from the locking bush is achievable by a technique known as, “spinning”. In “spinning”, one end of the bolt seal, e.g. the insertion bolt, is fixedly held, while the other end, e.g. the locking bush, is inserted to a drill chuck. When the drill is turned on and the locking bush is rotated at a high speed, the locking bush may be removed from the insertion bolt by applying a sudden downward force to the locking bush. Despite this deficiency, the bolt seal has been accepted as a high security solution.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,599 discloses a disposable cable seal device for preventing opening of the container doors as well as providing indication of whether the container had been opened without authorization. The device comprises an elongated tube into which an insertion pin is secured. A steel cable is attached at one end to the tube and at the other end to the pin. When the cable is wrapped around the locking rods of the doors of a container, and the pin is inserted to the tube, the doors are secured shut. The device may be removed only by either cutting through the cable or by destroying the insertion pin and/or elongated tube. Either way, it is evident that tampering with the container has taken place. Additionally, a unique identifying mark, e.g. a serial number, is etched on the outer surface of the tube, such that upon close inspection of the number or mark, it may be determined whether one device has been removed and replaced by a different device having a different identifying mark on the housing. However, the device of U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,599 has a number of shortcomings. In particular, the cable is wrapped around the locking rods that are attached to the doors of the container. As is well known in the industry, the configuration of containers from different manufacturers, including the distance between locking rods, varies. Hence, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 3A in U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,599, the cable of the device should be made having enough length to be capable of being wrapped around a large number of locking rod configurations. Depending on the slack of the cable, a thief may be capable of at least partially opening the container doors and removing at least some of the contents, without evidence of tampering. Moreover, the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,293,599 is required to comply with the ISO/PAS 17712 “High Security” grade requirements for usage under the C-TPAT initiative.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,331,022 discloses a seal assembly for securing container doors in a closed position. The invention is a multi-component assembly for providing supplemental sealing of the container doors. In particular, the assembly comprises an elongated cable having mating and/or locking segments at one or both of its ends. One end of the cable is situated in the seal clasp of the container door handle, and the other end of the cable is situated in a tamper evident cargo container door seal. The tamper evident seal comprises a horizontal cross-bar disposed transversally with respect to the locking rods. A c-shaped bracket having slots through which the cross-bar sits, and a bore through which one end of the cable is inserted, is positioned around at least the locking rod closest to the other end of the cable. In such a configuration, multiple levels of protection are provided for the container. However, this assembly is expensive, unnecessarily complex and requires installation and removal which takes time and skill to perform.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a tamper indication device and method that overcomes the drawbacks of prior art devices.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a sealing device that prevents the opening of freight container doors.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a sealing device that conforms with the C-TPAT initiative and the ISO/PAS 17712 “High Security” grade.
Additional objects and advantages of the present invention shall become apparent as the description proceeds.